Total mortgage application volume surged nearly 16% compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index. The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($766,550 or less) decreased to 7.02% last week from 7.07%.
Politicians risk the wrath of voters if they can’t make headway on an issue that has huge financial ramifications for most households. Population changes spurred by the pandemic. Byzantine zoning laws that make construction agonizingly slow and expensive. Stagnant wages amid stubborn inflation rates.
“Numerology” tries to find reality within various measurements of economic and real estate trends. Buzz: California’s homeownership rate hit a 13-year high last year – if you ignore the data-challenged, pandemic-twisted 2020 result.
After waiting years for the right time to buy, millennials are now getting on the property ladder in droves, especially in California’s Bay Area. In San Francisco, 37.8 percent of new mortgages issued last year went to older millennials aged between 35 and 44, according to Redfin analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data covering purchases of primary homes.
One of Burgundy’s power players has bought an iconic name in California Pinot Noir. Four years after acquiring a minority stake, Domaine Faiveley has purchased a majority share of Williams Selyem, the Sonoma-based winery founded by Burt Williams and Ed Selyem in 1979.
In 1984, Mike Bradley bought a brown-shingled home on a quiet street in central Berkeley. Forty years and three generations later, the Bradley family has grown — and so has their home. In 2009, the family built an addition, which Mike got when his son, Michael “Casey” Bradley, moved into the main house with his wife, Daphnée St Pierre, and their two children.